London 2012 Olympics: Heavyweight golden boy Anthony Joshua gets to have his cake and eat it

Anthony Joshua is preparing to spend his first week as Olympic super-heavyweight champion munching on his favourite chocolate cake and resisting the potential pit-falls of his new-found fame.

Joshua completed Great Britain’s best boxing performance at a Games in more than 100 years when he scored a dramatic countback victory over Italy’s Roberto Cammarelle on Sunday afternoon – the last day of the Games – to the delight of a roaring home crowd at ExCeL.

But Joshua is adamant it will take much more than money to tempt him to leave the amateur ranks, and a professional future is the last thing on his mind as he prepares to come to terms with life in Olympic spotlight.

Joshua said: “If fame comes I’m going to be okay with it, but I don’t want to be hyped up and made out to be something I’m not.

“I look at great amateur champions like Vasyl Lomachenko and how he just goes out there and gets the job done every time, and that’s the kind of attitude I want to have.

“I’m not interested in the money. I want to go out and get a burger and a big chocolate cake, then I want to go back to my flat just to kick back for a few days and enjoy some of my mum’s home cooking.”

Joshua knows if he does resist the lure of the professional ranks he could blaze a trail for the rest of the Great Britain team, almost all of whom will be approached by promoters in the wake of their performances in London.

While Joshua’s fellow gold medallist, Hull bantamweight Luke Campbell, is most likely to join the paid ranks, others including Fred Evans may be tempted by changes in the amateur code which will allow for a degree of professionalism.

Joshua said: “The way the amateur sport is going, with the World Series of Boxing and the new Amateur Professional Boxing, it’s very interesting and it could be the kind of thing that stops boxers automatically turning professional.

“You look at the Cubans, the Ukrainians and the Chinese and all their double Olympic champions and imagine how great that would be.

“If Great Britain can keep this team together, we would be incredibly strong in Rio in four years’ time. We are in a position where we could dominate amateur boxing over the next four years.”

Joshua was calmness personified after the dramatic end to his fight against reigning champion Roberto Cammarelle when the scores were tied 18-18. He won on countback, only for the Italian’s camp to appeal the decision. Within a half-hour, the agony was over and Joshua was the champion.

“I was really calm when that happened,” he insisted. “I’ve been in fights when I have been down or when I’ve been having tough times but I can’t worry about scoring. I just concentrated on my shots.

“I could see the Italian was fading in the third round and I thought I’d won ok.”

Team GB’s boxers topped the Olympic medal table after a thrilling few days, and team leader Rob McCracken yesterday hailed his squad as “magnificent”. Britain’s boxers finished top of the pile with five medals, three of them gold plus a silver and bronze.

And all the medallists – gold winners Joshua (super heavy), Campbell (bantamweight) and Nicola Adams (flyweight) plus silver winner Evans (welterweight) and middleweight
Anthony Ogogo (bronze) faced the media at Team GB House in the Olympic Park yesterday.

McCracken was lavish in his praise: “I’m immensely proud of them all. We had a pretty tough draw and they have battled against top-class opponents.

“This squad has done really well over the past three years but to be top of the Olympic medal table is unheard of in British boxing – they’ve been magnificent”.

McCracken is well aware of the buzz surrounding Joshua and the inevitable speculation over offers to try his hand in the ultra-lucrative heavyweight paid ranks. But McCracken insists the core of his squad will stay together and be ready to fight again for glory in the Rio Olympics in four years.

“Right now, they all need a few weeks off,” he said. “They need a breather. But we’ll look at Brazil and move the team on. We will be keeping the majority of the squad together. It is up to them, what they want to do but they are youngsters and don’t have to rush into anything. Me? I’d like to see them go on to Brazil.”

Flyweight champion Adams was first to pledge herself to the task: “I am definitely going for Rio in 2016. I want to be the double Olympic champion.”